In the abovementioned technical domain, among the problems generally encountered, the best known are the linearity and the noise factor in a direct mixing device. At the present time, it is also desirable to have a simplification of the overall architecture of a receiver.
The prior art describes various devices that seek to resolve these problems. For example, the patent U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,000 describes a switching mixer. While it does prove efficient, this device sometimes does not manage to ensure a good reception of the signals for applications with high dynamic range, a value being able to be defined as follows: >3 dBm for the strong signal and −127 dBm for the weak signal in 5 kHz of bandwidth and offers a linearity which proves insufficient for certain applications, notably, for uses in environments where there are jamming factors. Thus, the device described in this patent U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,000 limits the bandwidth to 100 KHz, with a noise factor of 12 dB and an operating frequency limited to 100 MHz.
Also known are numerous mixer architectures. These do not generally have a dynamic level that is sufficient for applications with high dynamic range.